Tetelestai

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by michael schinker in crucifixion, Good Friday, Jesus Christ, Life and death, Messiah

On a day we remember as Good Friday, Jesus came to the end of His mission as savior of the world on the cross when he exclaimed, “It is finished.” The Greek translation sums up the exclamation so well in one word: tetelestai, a word used in the ancient commercial world on business documents or receipts indicating that a debt had been paid –– in full. Interestingly, the word in John’s gospel is in a tense used to describe an action that has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. It conveys an idea that has happened and it is still in effect today. Contemporary readers of John’s record of Christ’s last moments would have understood the comparison he intended to make. The new covenant blood shed by the Lamb of God once and for all paid for that which the old covenant blood of bulls and goats could only cover up.

So far removed from the events and culture of the Bible, for most of us today the theology dealing with God’s sentence of death as the inevitable result of sin and the only acceptable recompense being the sacrifice of an innocent victim to pay the price of redemption can be difficult to grasp. That’s why many old time hymns are so much better at explaining complex spiritual realities than a hundred learned commentaries. The words for the following classic example were written in 1865 by Elvina Hall, a member of the Monument Street Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

I pray you will agree indeed that Jesus Paid It All.

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.
When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

Trekking to Bierstadt

31 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by michael schinker in aspens, Rocky Mountains

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At the trail head a friendly, seasoned park ranger baited us with the promise of views guaranteed suitable for vacation picture postcards. I recommend Bierstadt, she said, smiling. It’s an easy hike, and the view’s amazing.

That’s why we came, the wife and I, in late September, to enjoy “wrap and peel” chilly mornings and bright sunny afternoons to see what can’t be seen any other time of year: groves of golden aspen, their leaves fluttering in all their autumnal glory under a cobalt blue Colorado sky.

Bierstadt Lake. Sounds like it should be somewhere in Bavaria, someplace where Heidi lived herding goats rather than in the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park. With more than a dozen prior visits under our belts we never gave that trail a second thought. It sounded innocent enough. An easy jaunt. Just follow the arrow on the sign. Almost on a whim we departed Bear Lake with enough time to reach our goal and get back to the car, drive down to the lodge, clean up and enjoy a rainbow trout dinner with a glass or two of Pinot, to relax and savor the best moments of the day.

Upward and onward we’re winding along a well-beaten path, at least at first. To the folks coming down we said How far up? They all smiled and claimed Oh, just a bit higher. Soon the gnarled roots across the narrowing trail and loose stones made the ascent a bit more challenging. And scary. A twisted ankle here is as good as trouble on Everest. We’re in sneakers and shorts, the alpine climbing gear we shrugged off earlier still in the store window back in downtown Estes. I’m starting to huff and puff. She needs a walking stick. We’re not yodeling.

I might’ve been hallucinating on thin air but it felt like the forest wanted to start wrapping around us, maybe even turn against us. Towering pines became massive spikes with sinister arm-like branches threatening to grab us. I thought I heard something growl. I imagined we might end up like those poor lost children in a nightmarish tale by the Brothers Grimm. What would our family think about our mysterious disappearance, with only our cell phones left on the forest floor to show we were ever there at all?

Suddenly there’s a bit of a chill in the air. Overhead in typical Colorado afternoon fashion, the sky turns worrisome with billowing grayish cumulus clouds, almost within arm’s reach it seems at this over ten thousand foot elevation. Weather can get real ugly here, and fast. Lightening for sure could kill us, I’m thinking to myself. Or hail. And a gusher would surely sweep us away as easily as little pine cones go bobbing down a roaring creek.

Deeper and darker on what became an almost indistinct pathway we forge ahead. A couple miles and an hour and a half have gone by. But – this is a good sign – we are gradually dropping downhill, as predicted by the last hiker we met, who apparently had actually seen the object of our search.

Finally, we almost stumble onto the shoreline. And there it is, hiding beyond a curtain of thick brush – Tah duh, drum roll, please. Bierstadt! Glass-like calm, but shadowy. Marshy. The view around it uninspiring. And, most disappointing of all – no aspen to be seen. Anywhere. Um, this is it? I muttered, frowning. At this point, I’m thinking about rewriting the tour guide pamphlets and maps to refer to it as not much more than a pompous excuse for a pond.

Footnote: Albert Bierstadt, a 19th century painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American frontier, on this very spot rendered his vision of the lake that bears his name. I saw the lake. I saw the painting. He exaggerated. I guess anyone can use a broad brush of artistic license to portray a mediocre scene of nature as romantically enchanting. I took one photo and turned around.

Discouraged, we checked the time and decide we’d better find the way out, and quick. We’re low on energy and most importantly, out of bottled water. We have reached the point of no return, though. It’s too far to go back the way we came and shorter to take a different route to meet up with a shuttle bus. At least from now on it’s all downhill. But the trail is only as wide as a mountain bike tire, with a ridge on our right and a plunging slope on the left, nary a boulder or tree trunk to break our fall for 300 feet. In this case gravity may not be in our favor. I with my dizzying vertigo and she with sore feet echo back and forth an encouraging, Just take it easy. Don’t look down. We will make it. Really? At this tiptoe pace? I wondered.

Then, right around a hairpin curve on the trail . . . appears a panorama of the continental divide and Long’s Peak like we’d never seen before, and a mother lode of aspen. It was a visual symphony of yellow, fluttering and flickering in harmony with the breeze, thousands of glowing-in-sunlight trees dappling a dark green blanket of pines halted only by bare granite just under the floor of heaven. Stunning, it took my already short-of-breath breath away. We stood there a while in quiet amazement, as though we had stepped into a timeless time zone. Just the two of us and the Rockies, God’s own geological masterpiece. No need for a Bierstadt canvas here. This was real!

Our dream state was bumped by reality when two athletic all-American college boys squeezed by us jogging like gazelles up the trail. I can still see their wide-faced grins as they floated past us as though they had wings. Hey, they said, sort of like they do this every day. Hey back atchya! We do this once in a lifetime.

The road far below still looked like a winding gray rope, so we had a way to go to catch the shuttle before dusk and before the storm, which luckily never came. Yes, we eventually bottomed out, safe and sound. A few folks were waiting there with us for the bus. We smiled at them and at each other, and swaggered a bit, proud of our feat in overcoming Mother Nature’s curve ball. My face said Yeah, I’m an achiever, but my insides were saying I need a hot shower and an ice-cold Coors Light.

We would laugh about this wilderness passage all the way back home to Nebraska and for a long time after, with a certain degree of chagrin and sarcasm tempered by a dose of sentimentality. An unexpected turn of events brought us the blessing of an unforgettable afternoon of adventure and togetherness, the kind you can only experience when you get up off the couch, out of your comfort zone, and far away from access to a cell phone tower – like on the trail to Bierstadt.

Perspective

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Jesus Christ, Life and death, poem

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There has to be something
better than this.
Sometimes I weep. How can there be
so much beauty and so much horror?
But my pensive lamentations are nothing
compared to those who literally suffer
without comfort.

In my own good fortune I dream in peace
through the night hours and the clock
always starts over at dawn.
Breakfast and coffee smell good and
I eat until I’m full. I enjoy art and nature.
Music is inspiring. It elevates my soul.
Our family is close. Love makes me warm all over.
I have everything I need, and some extras.
Even so, I am restless. Discontent. Doubtful.

Dale Carnegie and the Bible both say
You are what you think,
so then I should fill my head with positivity.
I need to get that half-empty glass to half-full.
Maybe things would be different though if I weren’t
scrambling to make up for my losses,
trying to repair the damage of too many decades,
running on borrowed time, helplessly watching
calendar pages fly away in the wind,
the grave always laughing in my face.

Have you ever noticed that children and dogs
have no regard for their ultimate end?
Is it better that way? No concern with eschatology?
I know why the Egyptians were so preoccupied
with prepping for the afterlife.
It’s because death looks so final.
We just cannot seem to accept that inescapable
last scenario, even if we try to invent a better one.
And as far as I know, only one person has come back
from the other side, the One who was dead
and is now alive forevermore,
to give us a glimmer of hope,
that there actually is something
better than this.

War. What is it good for?

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Tolstoy, Ukraine, war

≈ 2 Comments

Of course the answer is “Absolutely nothing” . . . a sentiment expressed by musical artist Edwin Starr in a 1970 song that became the biggest hit of his career. He transformed an overlooked album track by the Motown psychedelic soul group The Temptations into his own number one hit, boasting the top position on the U.S. Billboard charts for three weeks. It eventually sold over three million copies, all the while widely adopted as an anthem for the anti-Vietnam war movement.

Fictional character Elaine Benes in a Season 5 episode of Seinfeld makes reference to the phrase while riding in a taxi with her boss-publicist Mr. Lippman and a fussy Russian writer in tow named Testikov. True to form with her propensity for spouting witless gaffes, she blurts out that Tolstoy’s first choice to title his epic War and Peace was actually, you guessed it, War, What Is It Good For? followed by an unashamedly hearty, “Huh!”

And that’s how we might well characterize it, war, good for nuthin’ – in a protest song, or in a sitcom for a bit of cursory humor, the subject actually so horrific that we dare not even glance at its reality lest we gouge forever into our psyche images unimaginable. But maybe we should look.

I came across this photograph recently, saved on my computer along with others over the years I found strikingly provocative and moving. I think it was taken by an anonymous reporter covering the war in the city of Odessa, Ukraine. But it could be anywhere, anytime.

Look. Is she not the quintessential picture of misfortune, the hapless victim of yet another armed conflict, a tragic consequence of the savagery of men so eager to shed blood over an idea or a plot of ground? She is so much more than a statistic, though, or a feature for the evening’s world news report. She’s an old lady in a babushka who should be at home, making soup, peeling potatoes, lighting a holy taper in front of an icon, saying her vespers. But look. Here she is, running with a dog, like a dog, with whatever she can carry from a life broken to pieces by a good for nuthin’ war. And where are you going all alone, little grandma? Where are your sons? Are they buried in the cold earth too, like your dreams? The dreams of a beautiful young girl, long ago playing so carefree in the schoolyard, your white dress catching the summer sun’s beams, and your hair so bright and free, flowing like corn silk in the breeze.

Tolstoy wrote, “To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.” And so we shall press on, in war and peace, loving God and life in the midst of suffering, hoping for a realization of the prophet Isaiah’s vision when men shall beat their swords into plowshares, and war will be practiced no more, when suffering will be forgotten, and the lady with the babushka will be young, bright and free again.

The Pursuit of Happiness

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Buddhist, Happiness

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Today I am writing about Peyangki, a typical carefree nine-year-old boy full of wonder, with a heart for discovery and adventure. He is quite atypical, however, in the sense that he lives on the other side of my world, in a completely different kind of world. I’ll nickname him Pey.

I got a glimpse into the life of Pey and his unique environment one evening last November. Channel surfing, I happened to click on the start of an episode of Independent Lens. Airing weekly on Monday nights on our local PBS channel, the Emmy Award-winning series introduces new documentary films made by independent filmmakers. That particular evening featured a film called Happiness, a 2014 piece written, directed and produced by French-Finnish filmmaker Thomas Balmès. With the Himalayas as a breathtaking backdrop, a dreamy musical score and an amiable main character you immediately want to run up to and hug, I figured this was going to be a cinematic gem. I was hooked to the screen in 30 seconds, and wasn’t disappointed.

Balmés introduces Pey in his remote home village of Laya, in the kingdom of Bhutan, about as far away from the twenty-first century as one can get. The country itself is about the size of Switzerland, tucked away between Tibet and India. The natives are as rugged and weather-beaten as their surroundings. Black-haired, almond-eyed with dark, dusky umber colored skin like well-worn saddle leather, they could probably blend in easily with rustic peasants in the Andes. The longer they age it seems, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish a male from a female face. Pey’s mother is probably 30 years younger than she looks. But the children are all bright and beautiful.

Bhutan’s geography expresses grandeur on a grand scale, with some of the world’s tallest peaks, the bluest skies, and a bleak, almost surreal landscape that can be surprisingly hostile despite its magical, tour book destination appearance. But it’s not Shangri-La. This is Pey’s backyard. It’s primitive, unchanged for hundred of years and the last place in the area to get electricity.

Pey’s father died of a heart attack recently after encountering a bear in the forest, so he lives with his mother and a couple of siblings. With too many mouths to feed, she feels he would be better off at the local Buddhist monastery. She drops him off barefoot and all wrapped up in brown and orange robes into the care of the monks, and rather unceremoniously says, “Good luck.” He just stands there, lost and lonely, separated from family and school chums, but handles it without a tear.

Soon utility workers are setting poles and pulling cable up and down the mountainsides. With electricity comes civilization’s crowning achievement: television. The village is ready to embrace this boon of modernity with open arms, even if it means selling a yak to get enough cash to purchase a set. Pey’s uncle asks him to go along to Thimphu, Bhutan’s largest city, on a mission to buy a second TV. The first one fell off a horse and broke. It takes them three days to walk to the nearest road, with the yak, to an automobile. Pey is exuberant with his first ride, but gets carsick all the way.

While in Thimphu, Pey gets a first-hand, down-and-dirty look at the new world. Cafés, stores, bars, nightclubs, and restaurants. Lights and noise. Browsing tourists and busy locals cramming the roads and sidewalks along with crimson-robed monks, aloof to the business of commercialism. He tries to locate his older sister, who is allegedly “working in an office” with computers, but the managers have never heard of any girl named Choki in that department. Finally she is discovered as a “dancer” at one of the clubs, and tells him she will probably never go back home. The journey is successful otherwise. The TV is bought and brought to the village without damage or incident, and Pey has seen curiosities that range from live fish in an aquarium to store window mannequins to a crippled man dead drunk in the gutter.

This film is a work of art, and therefore responses to it will be subjective. Some intellectually minded observers may see Happiness in the classic genre of progress spoiling the innate innocence of the noble savage. But what about the title itself? Maybe it’s a commentary on the nature of being satisfied, or seeking that lofty spiritual goal of fulfillment in Nirvana. After all, The Buddha says, “Happiness doesn’t depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think.” Ironically the lama at Pey’s monastery at one point asks him, “So do you expect TV to make you happy?” Pey’s answer is an enthusiastic “Yes.” So does that mean if he thinks it will make him happy that it will make him happy?

The final scene in the film shows Pey with a few older family members in a darkened room, a tight crop on their faces illuminated by the flickering movement on their new TV screen. They are watching – of all possibilities – a WWE professional wrestling program. The audio is in English, the announcer describing every move made in the ring. They are mesmerized.

I looked at those blank yet crudely beautiful faces – so far away from Starbucks, GAP and fast food drive-throughs – so far removed from what we usually consider important or significant or the kind of lifestyle that we champion as making a worthwhile contribution to modern society. You know, people making a real difference. Staring at my TV I couldn’t help but ask myself, actually out loud, “Does it really matter whether these people live or die?” I know. It sounds cruelly judgmental. Intellectually and culturally superior.

But that is not my point. It’s deeper than that. It’s the question of the hour, of all mankind, for all time. Do we prejudicially esteem achievers and artists and thinkers so much more than the child with dirty hands and a bad haircut subsisting almost by himself on the roof of the world? Personally, I maintain that every life without a doubt has immeasurable value, no matter what. I think that’s the way God sees it. And Pey, in his sublime simplicity, does make a difference, even in the big scheme of things. His life spoke to me, because here I am writing about it. He’s an awesome kid who touched my heart and I won’t soon forget.

I thought prison was bad enough.

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Life and death

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Last week, on January 14 a prison transport vehicle carrying 15 people skidded off a Texas highway overpass and plunged into the path of a moving freight train. After the collision, the bus was dragged for about 200 yards along the tracks before coming to a complete stop. Officials concluded that icy roads were to blame for the crash. Two correctional officers and eight inmates died from injuries suffered in the accident.

One of the victims, 29 year-old inmate Tyler Townsend had called his mother in Benbrook the night before. “I said, ‘Let’s pray for a safe journey. Call me Sunday night,’ ” Petra Townsend recalled. “He said, ‘OK.’ ” “I said, ‘I love you.’ He told me he loved me too, and that was it.”

She admitted that her son chose his own journey outside of the law early on, using drugs as a teenager. He went to prison twice before, for drugs and other crimes, including car theft, but managed to graduate from an alternative school, and even tried college. “I always believed he was going to change that path,” his mother told reporters. She felt that Tyler believed it, too. Sentenced to three years, Tyler was denied an early release on Dec. 28, and was scheduled to come back home next January.

A deeply religious woman, Mrs. Townsend said her son had recently been baptized in prison. She said her faith does not have room for laying blame for her son’s death. “That’s part of a plan we can’t understand. This is God’s business. This is God,” she repeated. “No, no, no. Don’t question.”

I am fairly certain that none of the men involved in this tragedy woke up that morning and expected to end up later that day in a box. Talk about bad timing – the weather, an icy overpass, the train schedule. But when it comes to death, what would be good timing? Maybe if you are 98 and languishing in a nursing home with a worn out shell of a body and a mind that long ago faded away into faint shadows of the past?

I’m going to file this story in a folder I call “My Last Breath is . . . When?” It’s a collection of news items that address the utter frailty of life, and our reluctance to admit or expect just how quickly it can change or even cease. I may post a few of those reports as time goes on. For now, considering my own inevitable fate I must reluctantly acquiesce, concurring with the admonition from James 4:14: “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

The World Is A Vampire

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Jesus Christ, Smashing Pumpkins, vampires

≈ 2 Comments

My title statement is the first line from The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1997 Grammy Award winning song, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, lead vocalist/songwriter Billy Corgan’s raging rant against the unfairness of life and the futility of even trying to win the battle. Never a big fan of the group, I had forgotten about the song until last week. I was watching Whale Wars, an Animal Planet two-hour long documentary chronicling the efforts of Operation Zero Tolerance, a nature nurturing campaign opposing Japanese commercialized whale poachers, led by a group known as Sea Shepherd Australia. Each program segment opens with Corgan’s disturbing appraisal.

The metaphor is not difficult to translate. Of course the song is not a complaint about the beautiful world we enjoy full of golden sunsets, cute puppies and ice cream sundaes. The dark psyche exposed throughout the rest of the song has been interpreted by its critics as either a protest of modern society’s morals and ethics or lack thereof by an artistically interpretive genius, or a deliberately overdone tongue-in-cheek ruse played on his fans in the guise of and for the sole sake of aggressively alternative rock. Has Corgan really confronted the lifeblood sucking, all-consuming Vampire, face to neck, either personally in his own troubled childhood or in the grownup rat race world of greed driven by big business? Does hatred of that same Vampire motivate a Sea Shepard devotee to risk life and limb on a hostile Antarctic sea to save whales in peril of being slaughtered for the financial gain of only a few?

Regardless of what inspired Corgan’s anger and angst-filled lyrics, it makes me wonder what kind of world do I see myself living in? I am also thinking about what Jesus said to Nicodemus, recorded in John 3:16, the verse even nonbelievers are familiar with. He said, “God so loved the world . . .” Although the conversation was undoubtedly in a regional dialect of Aramaic, the written scriptural Greek word we read in John’s gospel for “world” is kosmon, the same root from which the Russian language derives the term kosmonaut, a combination of two words meaning “universe” and “sailor.” In English we use an anglicized form of “cosmos” to mean the planets, stars and everything out there that isn’t earthly.

Kosmos, however, can present a variety of interpretations. According to Thayer, it can describe a harmonious arrangement or order; the stars, the heavenly hosts; the world, the universe; the inhabitants of the earth; the ungodly multitude, the whole mass of men alienated from God; or world affairs, the aggregate of earthly attentions or concerns; or a general collection of particulars of any kind. So what sort of world then did God love enough to consider it worth redeeming, worthy of His Son’s sacrifice to reconcile it back to the way it was fashioned originally? Does it include The Vampire?

Maybe the real question should focus more on what God’s unique kind of love means, rather than on that which is loved. Regardless, after a repetitive litany describing his powerless plight as a “rat in a cage” and an obtuse reference or two to Jesus, Corgan sadly confesses in the end, “I still believe that I cannot be saved.” C’mon, Billy, at some point we’ve all fought with some kind of vampire or another. Stop agonizing and trust someone who knows all about what you’re going through; the one who said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” It wasn’t Buddha. It’s Jesus. (John 16:33)

Merry Christmas to all!

25 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by michael schinker in Christmas, Christmas Carol, Christmas Day, Jesus Christ, Messiah, Prophecy

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Of all the scripture verses quoted today concerning the birth of Christ, I especially like the passage celebrated so enthusiastically in a segment of Handel’s spirited composition of The Messiah. It’s from Isaiah 9:6-7

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; 
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom, 
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness 
From then on and forevermore. 
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.”

That child has been born to us, the Son of God is given – the babe in a manger over 2,000 years ago. But the rest of the prophecy is yet to come, and I can hardly wait. The “government on His shoulders” is a vivid metaphor to describe how this fallen, broken and lost world needs the rule and reign of One who is unaffected by politics, greed, or selfish agendas.

Heaven and earth collide so sweetly and softly in precious baby Jesus, but a day is coming when the collision will be a violent explosion of the wrath of God against wickedness and all those who oppose His authority. It’s a given. “The zeal of the Lord will accomplish this” is a promise. And so heaven and earth will ultimately be one. God’s version of justice and righteousness will triumph forever, from the literal throne of David. The Prince of Peace whose birth we celebrate today will bring the dawning of a new day full of light and joy, shining from the glory of Himself. This makes my Christmas Day doubly special. How ‘bout you?

‘Twas the night before . . . ?

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by michael schinker in Christmas, Holidays, Jesus Christ

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Christmas eve. Such a meaningful couple of hours in the lives of Christians all around the world. Many of us will instinctively recall the words and pictures of Clement Moore’s 1823 account of the legendary red-suited, right jolly old elf’s arrival upon a moonlight drenched rooftop with “a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.”

It’s a night for midnight Mass, for bell choirs, candles and expressions of “Peace on earth, good will to men” to friend and stranger alike. It’s a time for family traditions, sharing with relatives come to town for holiday cheer and the making of memories for young and old alike. The presents are wrapped, under the tree, shaken once or twice to guess the possible contents. Eggnog and poinsettias abound. Churches are full, at least for one hour out of the year. The neighborhood is aglow with over-lighted scenes of mangers and snowmen.

And yet, some will struggle with finding joy this night. Some are in hospice. There are sons and daughters unselfishly serving our country in far flung places around the world, alone with a heart longing to be home for the holidays. The poor, the desperate, the homeless. We know they are out there, without access to that banquet table full of life’s blessings we so often take for granted.

This is what I want for Christmas, and what I wish for you: can we somehow all join hands and hearts together, all of us, united in a common bond of a humanity so in need of hope, in need of rescue from darkness and most of all, from ourselves? Can we just leave behind our busyness and come together in one humble spirit, at Bethlehem, where it all started? To see the love of God expressed in a baby’s flesh – Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus. His proper Hebrew name Yeshua means “salvation.” That quite simply expresses exactly who He is and why He came – to save sinners like me. This precious newborn babe, wrapped up in swaddling clothes, held so sweetly in His loving mother’s arms would ultimately breathe His last, held to the arms of the cross by the sins of the world, naked and forsaken by all. What a gift! The first gift of Christmas is Christ Himself.

Our best Christmas yet can be realized this very night, this silent and holy night, so I say let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord!

My Holiday Obsession

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by michael schinker in Christmas, Holidays, Obsessions

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I admit I have dealt with my share of personal addictions throughout my adult life, principally smoking, a struggle that went on for 40 plus years. I enjoyed it. Never really wanted to quit, until compelled by the Holy Spirit who gently nudged me into a release from bondage and into a healthier lifestyle a little more than eight years ago. My perennial problem now seems to be with certain accoutrements embellishing the holiday season, e.g. wrapping paper and greeting cards.

Shocking and embarrassing, yes I admit it. No, I haven’t shared this in group therapy. I don’t know if there is a group to address this particular psychological urge. My family is aware of the situation. My wife, the designated intervention specialist, instinctively grabs onto my coat as we walk past the displays at Hallmark or Super Target, tugging me away from certain temptation.

For weeks the shelves and bins are full of paper rolls, stuffed full. Different lengths and widths. Metric and standard measurements. Cheap, easily torn paper and the expensive kind with lines on the inside so you know exactly where to cut; shiny foils, and some with sparkle in the designs. So attractive, it’s blatant Christmastime eye candy. And almost irresistible. Then there’s the greeting card isle. Box after box of gleaming, glittering options for expressing one’s best holiday wishes to anyone, or from anyone – even the cat. The scenes on the cards are so inviting. A comfy home all aglow in the gently falling evening snow, lamppost decorated with ivy and holly. Huge Christmas tree in the window, lit and adorned with treasured family ornaments. A happy snowman in the front yard, dressed up just like Frosty. The card’s message set in a fancy reflective gold metallic script.

Oh. Hand on my chest, I’m gasping, and a bit choked up. I’ll take a dozen boxes.

And each box usually has 12 to 18 cards with an appropriate number of envelopes plus one, because they know you’re going to mess up on at least one address. In reality, I don’t have more than a few friends and relatives to whom I might mail a card, even if I could actually settle on just one particular style. Probably why I haven’t sent any out for years.

The issue is even more disturbing when I confess that we already have enough wrap on hand at home to wallpaper the entire house inside and out at least a couple of times. We have grownup wrap, with designs both modern and old-fashioned, diagonal stripes and poinsettias rolling off ad infinitum. We have kid specific wrap with Jolly Old St. Nick and tree pattern stencils in every color, gingerbread men, candy canes and probably even sugar plums dancing off the sheet.

I must say that I have done relatively well so far this year. I did nab a couple rolls at the craft store a few days ago, my wife not being on hand for restraint. They were 60% off. Who could resist? Just need to get through the next few days, then we can pack up the hoard and forget about it until next August, when holiday decor gradually begins to emerge restocked in the retail world and we start all over again!